The Seed of Empire by Fred M. White

Here was something altogether outside Ginger's outlook. He had, of course, expected that the time would come when he would either give up his life for his country or find himself grievously wounded, in which latter case he had been quite prepared to make the best of it and at best lie neglected on a heap of damp straw whilst better men than himself were monopolising the Army Service Corps. That he should have been picked up and waited upon hand and foot as if he had been a person of some importance struck him almost in the light of a joke.

"Strike me," he said, "they must 'ave taken me for a bloomin' orficer. It was that German uniform as done it. I was got up regardless of expense, somethin' between a comic opera major an' a circus rider. An' I expect the army service chaps took me for a German general at least. I wonder if yer 'appens ter know exactly wot I am, miss."